The Venetian bracelet :: :: University of Virginia Library

Alas for the young heart thus early thrown
Back on itself, the unloved and the lone!
For this should be the lesson of long years,
The weary knowledge taught and traced by tears,
Till even those are frozen, and we grow
Cold as the grave that yawns for us below:
But this was like those sudden blasts that fling
Unlook'd-for winter on the face of spring,—
And worst woe for the heart, whose early fate
Leaves it so young, and, oh, so desolate.
She had one feeling left—it was of pride—
Oh, misery, how much she had to hide!
And steps were now approaching her: she sprung
From off the couch, and every nerve was strung

For that worst rack, the rack of outward show,
Still haunts such vanity the deepest woe.
The heart may swell to bursting, but the while
The features wear the seeming of a smile:
The eye be lesson'd, and the lip be seal'd,
And wretchedness be, like the plague, conceal'd.
—It was the Count Arezzi: “What, still here!—
Come, thou wild dreamer of another sphere,
I must shut out the sky, if thus it share
My stars, thine eyes, which should be shining there,
Making yon hall its equal; but to-night
You have, Amenaïde, a rival light.
The English bride,—see round they crowd to gaze
On the new loveliness her form displays.
Why, she should bear the name which once you bore,
—The peasant countess,—it would suit her more.”

A moment, and the group were press'd aside,
She stood before Leoni and his bride.
He knew her history, and each met prepared;
Cold looks were given, careless converse shared:
At first Leoni shunn'd to meet her eye,—
A moment's awkwardness,—but that pass'd by.
How much we give to other hearts our tone,
And judge of others' feelings by our own!
Himself was alter'd:—all he sought to do
Was to believe that she was alter'd too.
Her cheek was paler than 'twas wont to be,—
That was its round of midnight gaiety:
Her smile less frequent, and her brow more grave,—
'Twas her new rank its stateliness that gave:
New friends press'd round,—their interview is o'er,—
And he pass'd on, to think of it no more;

And she to seem as thoughtless. Till to-night,
Like some fair planet in its own far light,
She shone apart; to-night she sought the crowd,
Join'd in their mirthfulness, and laugh'd aloud;
Was ready with gay converse,—that light mirth
Which like the meteor has from darkness birth:
She watch'd her circle,—ready smile or sneer,—
Sneers for the absent ones, smiles for the near,
Till every other hall sent forth its tide,
And half the guests were gather'd at her side.
It was an evil feeling that which now
Flush'd on her cheek, and lighted up her brow—
Part bitterness, part vanity, part woe—
The passionate strife which pride and misery know;
A burning wish to wake a vain regret
In that false one, who now had best forget;

To show Leoni how that she, the queen,
Made his fair Edith nothing on the scene:
Her rival—hers—language has not a word
By woman's ear so utterly abhorr'd.
No marvel, for it robs her only part
Of sweet dominion—empire o'er the heart.